


Drizzle

by arienai



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:35:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arienai/pseuds/arienai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raidou and his mentor get lost on a rainy day. A drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drizzle

A day ago Gouto would have said he'd missed the smell of the rain. That rich scent of wet earth and smoky fires lit to ward off the approaching autumn chill; the city's less pleasant odors washed under by a fresh clean blanket of misty drizzle.

But that was yesterday, and yesterday he was scampering along to the train station underfoot of the boy - who by his account had forgotten how to mind his heels. He had a sore paw and a sore tail to show for it, but the kid - tuckered out from his trials - nodded off in half a tick on the bed of their sleeper car, hat flung on the chair which _ought_ to have served as Gouto's cushion. At length he'd found a spot by the kid's heels, only to have the boy roll on him in the night and all the hasty apologies in the world couldn't save him from a right scratching.

There was to be no mess this time, said the boy; no wandering dim pre-dawn streets for the better part of a day, too proud and too nervous to ask for directions. No, this time they were to head to the right line, get off at the right station, and crawl into the office with plenty of time before the lazy piker who called himself a detective awoke to catch a nap on the sofa. 

But a few circles around the block in a wholly unfamiliar part of town as the sky went from black, to charcoal, to ashen grey proved the lie; much chagrined, the boy shrugged: "Must've changed the lines."

By this time Gouto's tail was swishing; it thwacked a steady beat against the boy's skinny ankles. He sniffed the air; faint traces of salt made him meow in dismay - Tsukudo-cho wasn't hardly near the coast. "We'd best get a move on, then." And ducked, for the boy stepped right over his head. 

No, rain was for fools and saps and the smell of it meant he couldn't use his nose to find their way home; peaks of light through the sodden clouds brought with them not a hint of warmth, and soon he was soaked straight through from the fur to the skin. It meant tiny wet stones clung to his paws and there was no time to stop to bite them out - meant there were no stores unshuttered early to waft the heat of their cooking fires out into the road.

It also hushed the sounds of the city waking drowsily, reluctantly, from its slumber, hesitant to put its feet to the chilly floorboards. The only thing the cat could hear was the boy's shoes as they clicked on the paving stones and crunched the loose gravel, clopped on the sodden packed earth--

 _Splooshed_ as he stepped through a puddle, and splashed mucky water all over his cat.

"Well _done_ , kid." Gouto hissed, shaking out his drenched paws, shivering. This would take hours to lick clean, and the wind cut right through to his bones. But the bloody _kid_... "Makes a fella wonder if you even want him a--"

...The _kid_ scooped him up and toweled him off with the inside of his cape. Then pressed him to the dry cozy warmth of his school blazer beneath, wrapped up tight in his arms. 

Gouto nuzzled his chest and the boy kissed his ear; together they watched the thick rainclouds drift through the sky as the morning dawned silver over the Capital anew.


End file.
